Polynesia

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Polynesia is generally defined as the islands within the triangle

Polynesia (from the Greek words meaning "many islands") is a large grouping of over 1000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The term "Polynesia" was coined by Charles de Brosses in 1756, and originally applied to all the islands of the Pacific. Jules Dumont d'Urville in an 1831 lecture to the Geographical Society of Paris introduced the terms Micronesia and Melanesia. This division into three distinct Pacific sub-regions remains in widespread use today. Numerous people from this region died fighting for democracy in the world wars of the 20th century.

Geography

Polynesia may be described as the islands within a triangle with its corners at Hawai'i, New Zealand and Easter Island. A Polynesian island group outside of this great triangle is Tuvalu. There are small Polynesian enclaves in the Solomon Islands and in Vanuatu.

Cook Bay on Moorea, French Polynesia

The Pacific Islands, except New Zealand and Easter Island, lie within the rainy tropics or the humid subtropics. In such areas there are no abrupt seasonal changes as occur in regions of temperate climate. Temperatures typically average close to 27°C (80° F) most of the year.

There are coral atolls, volcanic islands, many with active volcanoes, and some of the highest mountains in the world. The vegetation varies. Soils on coral atolls are thin and sandy. Sparse vegetation consists of shrubs, small trees, grasses, and coconut palms. Continental islands have mangrove forests on the coast, palm trees further inland, and rainforest in the interior.

History

Map of American Polynesia, 1851

Polynesian history covers four eras: Exploration and settlement (1800B.C.E. to 700 C.E.), pre-European growth (700B.C.E. to 1595), European discovery and colonization(1595 to 1945), and modern times (from 1945 to the present).

Maternal mitochondrial DNA analysis suggests that Tongans, Samoans, Niueans, Cook Islanders, Tahitians, Hawaiians, Marquesans and Maori, are genetically linked to indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia. Between about 3000 and 1000 B.C.E. speakers of Austronesian languages spread from Taiwan – into the edges of western Micronesia and on into Melanesia. In the mid second millennium B.C.E. a distinctive culture appeared suddenly in north-west Melanesia, in the Bismarck Archipelago. This culture, known as Lapita, is distinctive for its large permanent villages on beach terraces, and the making of pottery. Between about 1300 and 900 B.C.E., the Lapita culture spread 6000 kilometers east to Tonga and Samoa.

Adventurous seafarers, by 700C.E., the Polynesians had settled the vast Polynesian triangle. By comparison, Viking navigators first settled Iceland around 875C.E. Most evidence indicates that their motivation was to ease the demands of burgeoning populations.

In isolation, each local population developed politically in diverse ways, from fully-developed kingdoms in some islands and island groups, to constantly-warring tribes or extended family groups between various sections of islands. On low islands, where communications are unimpeded, there does not appear to have developed any conflict. But on most high islands, there were warring groups inhabiting various districts, usually separated by mountain ridges, with carefully drawn lowland boundaries. Early on, however, many such islands developed a united social and political structure, usually under the leadership of a strong monarch.

The Marquesas Islands were the first Polynesian islands to be discovered by Europeans — by the Spanish navigator, Álvaro de Mendaña de Neirain 1595. Because of the scarcity of mineral or gemological resources, the exploration of Polynesia by Europeans (whose primary interest was economic), was of little more than passing interest. The great navigator Captain James Cook was the first to attempt to explore as much of Polynesia as possible.

Europeans brought a great number of changes, including the introduction of alien diseases to which the Polynesians had no immunity, slavery to supply plantations in South America, and an influx of Christian missionaries, many of whom regarded the Polynesians as descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. Many colonizing powers, pressured by missionaries, forcibly suppressed native cultural expression, including the use of Polynesian languages.

By the early 1900s, almost all of Polynesia was colonized or occupied by Western colonial powers. However Tonga (or the "Friendly Islands") maintained its independence, at least nominally. Meanwhile, all of the Polynesian outliers were subsumed into the sometimes-overlapping territorial claims of Japan, the United Kingdom and France.

The critical attack which brought the United States into World War II, was the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in south-central Oahu, Hawaii. A number of islands were developed by the Allies as military bases, especially by the American forces, including as far east as Bora Bora.

After World War II, political change came more slowly to the islands of Polynesia than to the other parts of overseas colonies of European powers. Although sovereignty was granted by royal proclamation to New Zealand as early as 1907, this did not go into full effect until 1947.

Following in independence were the nations (and the sovereign powers from which they obtained complete political independence) of: Samoa, as "Western Samoa" (from New Zealand) in 1962, Tonga (from the United Kingdom) in 1970, and Tuvalu (from the United Kingdom) in 1978.

The remaining islands are still under official sovereignty of the following nations: American Samoa (United States), Cook Islands (New Zealand), French Polynesia (France), Niue (New Zealand), Pitcairn (United Kingdom), Tokelau (New Zealand), Wallis and Futuna (France), Easter Island (Chile), Howland, Baker, Jarvis, and Palmyra Islands (United States).

The various outliers lie within the sovereign territory of the nations of Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the French territory of New Caledonia.

Migration

Polynesians settled the vast Polynesian triangle by 700C.E.

Polynesian migration is impressive considering that the islands settled are spread out over great distances — the Pacific Ocean covers nearly a half of the Earth's surface area. Most contemporary cultures, by comparison, never voyaged beyond out of sight of land.

Knowledge of the traditional Polynesian methods of navigation was largely lost after contact with and colonization by Europeans. Explorer Captain James Cook accepted the view that migration occurred when large groups of Pacific islanders who were driven off course in storms and ended up hundreds of miles away with no idea where they were. Late nineteenth and early twentieth century writers such as Abraham Fornander and Stephenson Percy Smith told of heroic Polynesians migrating in great coordinated fleets. In the mid-twentieth century, Thor Heyerdahl argued that the Polynesians had migrated from South America on balsa-log boats.

Andrew Sharp asserted, in 1963, that settlement of Polynesia had been the result of luck, random searching, and drifting, rather than as organized voyages of colonization. In the late 1960s Dr David Lewis sailed his catamaran from Tahiti to New Zealand using stellar navigation without instruments. Ben Finney built a 40-foot replica of a Hawaiian double canoe and tested it in a series of sailing and paddling experiments in Hawaiian waters. At the same time, ethnographic research in the Caroline Islands in Micronesia brought to light the fact that traditional stellar navigational methods were still very much in everyday use there. This was also the case in the Sulu Archipelago in the Philippines.

Polynesian navigators probably used the stars, the movement of ocean currents and wave patterns, the air and sea interference patterns caused by islands and atolls, the flight of birds, the winds and the weather. Scientists think that long-distance voyaging followed the seasonal paths of birds. A voyage from Tahiti, the Tuamotus or the Cook Islands to New Zealand might have followed the migration of the Long-tailed cuckoo. It is also believed that Polynesians employed shore-sighting birds, like the frigatebird.

Politics

Polynesia includes six independent nations (New Zealand, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Samoa), two political units that are parts of larger nations (Hawaii is a state of the United States, and Easter Island is part of Chile), two self-governing entities that remain linked with their former colonial power (Cook Islands and Niue with New Zealand), and five territories administered by other nations — New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna, all administered by France, Tokelau, administered by New Zealand, and American Samoa administered by the United States.

Polynesian governments vary. The independent nations replaced hereditary chiefs with constitutions providing for executives and legislatures. In Tonga, politics are controlled by a hereditary king, who serves as head of state and appoints the head of government. In the nations that have entered pacts with the United States or New Zealand, the pattern is for local self-government with matters of defense overseen by the foreign power.

Internal self-government is also the rule among the territories of overseas powers, with elected legislatures and executives. Some elected representatives are sent to the national legislature in the overseas capital. French Polynesia sends one voting member to each house of the French National Assembly in Paris. The territories are dependent on the mainland government for economic subsidies, and often have little control over political decisions.

Economy

With the exception of New Zealand, most independent Polynesian islands derive much of their income from foreign aid and remittances from those who live in other countries. Some encourage their young people to go where they can earn good money to remit to their stay-at-home relatives. Many Polynesian locations, such as Easter Island, supplement this with tourism income. Some have more unusual sources of income, such as Tuvalu which marketed its '.tv' internet top-level domain name, or the Cooks that relied on stamp sales. A very few others still live as they did before western civilization encountered them.

Most Pacific Islanders grow crops for their own use. These include bananas, breadfruit, sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, and taro. Coffee plantations, introduced in the colonial era, are important in New Caledonia and Papua New Guinea, and vanilla is raised for export on Tonga.

Coconut, the source of copra, or dried coconut meat, is the most common crop and is sometimes the major export. Extensive rain forests in the Solomon Islands provide forest products for export. Fishing is a source of food and a big export earner for some economies. In French Polynesia, cultured pearls are exported. Pacific Island nations have had fishing disputes with the United States and Japan.

New Caledonia has rich deposits of nickel, chromite, and iron ores. Large reserves of petroleum lie in the continental shelves along the Pacific Rim. Fields of manganese nodules, potato-sized nuggets of iron and manganese oxides that can contain copper, cobalt, and nickel have been found on patches of the ocean floor. Manufacturing is limited to handicrafts and food processing.

Polynesian countries trade with their former and current colonial powers (the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, and France) as well as Canada, and increasingly, Japan. Tourism has become a big income earner. French Polynesia was the second most popular tourist destination. Japan has become the largest single source of visitors. But most tourist facilities are owned by foreigners, and much of the profit from tourism leaves the Pacific. Jobs are seasonal, and only low-skill jobs are open to islanders. Tourism can harm coral reefs and rain forests.

Shipping networks carry cargo and passengers between the hundreds of inhabited islands and atolls. Most Pacific Island nations are well served by satellite technology, and their access to telephone, television, and radio services is good. As Polynesian nations do not produce any oil or natural gas, most fuels must be imported. In rural households, wood from forests is an important source of energy.

Demographics

Polynesians, whose features are Mongoloid, are tall and have lighter-skins than Micronesians or Melanesians. Their hair is dark and either straight or wavy but not curled. Polynesian languages are all members of the family of Oceanic languages, a sub-branch of the Austronesian language family.

Polynesia has a total population of just over six million. But the Polynesian population is estimated at about three million people spread over 1000 islands. Of New Zealand's four-million people, about 260,000 identify themselves as Polynesian. Auckland city has the largest concentration of Polynesians in the South Pacific. In addition, New Zealand has about 600,000 Maori people. Of Hawaii's 1.2-million people, there are about 116,000 native Hawaiians or other Polynesians.

Pre-Christian Polynesians worshipped many gods, each of whom represented some aspect of their environment, often believed their founding ancestors were gods, and had altars and houses for them. Offerings sometimes included human sacrifices. Valuable tools or strong chiefs or warriors were sometimes thought to possess mana, a force that gave an object or person prestige or authority. Because of a strong readiness to accept new ideas and due to relatively large numbers of competitive sects of Christian missionaries, Polynesians readily adopted Christianity. Polynesians today are mostly Protestants of various groups, but with a large minority who are Roman Catholic.

Houses of natives in Tahiti, circa 1842

Anthropologists term the Eastern Polynesian system of kinship the Hawaiian system.

Religion, farming, fishing, weather prediction, out-rigger canoe (similar to modern catamarans) construction and navigation were highly developed skills because the population of an entire island depended on them.

Settlements by the Polynesians were of two categories. The hamlet and the village. Size of the island inhabited determined whether or not a hamlet would be built. The larger volcanic islands usually had hamlets because of the many zones that could be divided across the island. Food and resources were more plentiful and so these settlements of four to five houses (usually with gardens) were established so that there would be no overlap between the zones. Villages, on the other hand, were built on the coasts of smaller islands and consisted of thirty or more houses. Usually these villages were fortified with walls and palisades made of stone and wood. However, New Zealand demonstrates the opposite — large volcanic islands with fortified villages.

Culture

Carving from the ridgepole of a Māori house, ca 1840

Polynesia divides into two distinct cultural groups, East Polynesia and West Polynesia. The culture of West Polynesia is conditioned to high populations. It has strong institutions of marriage, and well-developed judicial, monetary and trading traditions. It comprises the groups of Tonga, Niue, Samoa and the Polynesian outliers.

Eastern Polynesian cultures are highly adapted to smaller islands and atolls including the Cook Islands, Tahiti, the Tuamotus, the Marquesas, Hawaii and Easter Island. Eastern Polynesians adapted their culture to a non-tropical environment when they settled New Zealand.

Although pre-European Polynesians had no metals, they developed a complex civilization by using available materials. For example, coconut palm leaves provided matting and roof thatch, the fibrous material covering the coconuts could be made into baskets, the shells could become household containers and other utensils, while the meat and liquid provided various foods and beverages.

Precolonial Polynesians also devised snares, traps, nets, harpoons, and special hooks that do not snag on reefs to catch fish. There are the giant stone statues on Easter Island and polished, exquisitely carved war clubs made throughout the region. Skills were handed down through their families. Craft items, like tapa cloth made from tree bark, remain important, especially for the tourist trade. Other art forms include ceremonial dancing and singing. Woodcarving is practised throughout Polynesia.

Independence is not the only influence affecting modern Polynesian society. The primary driving forces are the ever-increasing outside influences, through improved air communications as well as through vastly improved telecommunications. Tourism has had a tremendous impact on the direction of the development. The culture has adapted to accommodate the interests of outsiders, while there remains pressure to retain native traditions. Polynesia is undergoing cultural change.

Template:Polynesia

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